


i'll say goodbye now

by maraudersourwolf



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Tragedy, Heavy Angst, M/M, Monster Hunters, Sad Ending, Sad With No Happy Ending, Self-Sacrifice, Tearjerker, They Never Said I Love You
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 09:39:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15385974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maraudersourwolf/pseuds/maraudersourwolf
Summary: One of Liam’s hands, covered in pieces of their escape with leaves and dirt and grief hidden under his nails, grips the chimera’s shirt but it lacks the strength the beta needs to convey what he thinks. It’s like gripping water and watch it scur in between your fingers. It doesn’t stay with him.He can’t stop it.He’s just a kid in a grown up world, scared and restless and Theo held his hand.“I wish we had more time.”





	i'll say goodbye now

**Author's Note:**

> First scene of this fic is roughly based on one of Wonder Woman's dialogue.  
> And the last scene is based on a weird and bittersweet song.  
> My only excuse is that I was crying and I didn't want to be the only one.  
> So here.
> 
>  
> 
> Not really beta'd.  
> It's really messy, as usual.  
> And requieres a box of tissues nearby.  
> Hope you still enjoy.

 

 

He can't against hunters.

He can't against monsters.

He can't against a supernatural world where every week there's someone bigger and badder planning their doom.

He can't against a world that sees him as a token, as the embodiment of everything good in it, of hope.

He can't, because he doesn't have hope. He isn't good either, filled with rage and regrets. He's a kid fighting against forces that are older than cities, older than the first bones underneath the ground. Older than light itself, because darkness was first than anything the universe can recall.

He's just a kid, even if he hates that term coming out of his mom’s mouth, with sorrow and nostalgia nesting in between the gaps of the letters. Even if he hates the way Scott’s mom pats his head with the same care you take with a shard of glass and the sheriff’s hands land on his shoulder in a way that reminds him of the first days on the deepest side of a pool and he desperately trying not to drown. Even if he hates that’s what a paper on some desk under someone else’s power say and he pretends that fighting everyday is like a game of cops and thieves.

He knows, deep down, that’s the truth.

He’s just a kid and the only thing he can do is try.

But he's not stupid to think that's enough, even if he convinces himself and pushes further because at one point things have to stop. Either because he won or because he died. A breaking point he wished never came knocking at his door but here he is. Deep red at the side of his body, tainting his shaky fingers and turning darker until black is just another light in front of his eyes, and a hiding spot that does nothing but to remind him that he’s small and scared, triggering the voice of his mom saying that _everything will be alright_ and tears running down his face as a timeless feature to own.

Crying is not in the list of things he’s allowed to do now. And calling his mom is nothing but a luxury he doesn’t own since long. What he can do is play pretend that everything would be over soon, that everything will be just right, that the goods always win over the bads and that he’s every damn superhero he read about as a child.

Lying was never the strongest factor in his system.

“You’ll be okay”

That’s someone else’s work.

There’s no blip on Theo’s heartbeat nor the scent of guilt rolling out of his skin, but Liam knows that’s nothing more than practice to keep the calm facade that always kept the chimera safe intact. Liam can perfectly see the little glitches on that automatic behaviour, like the trembling hands that match his own and the skittish green gaze that sweeps over him over and over like watching a movie you already know how’s going to end.

Liam wants to bicker, because that’s what they do. That’s the thing that’s normal into this anomaly in the script. But the dizziness is taking his head into an out of focus reality that changes words for grunts of pain and ragged breaths.

Theo starts looking more troubled by each passing second and Liam bites down the remark that not a year ago, the chimera barely if held a second thought at having some blood sticking his fingers together and now, he looks scared.

Or maybe it’s Liam projecting, trying to find a sparkle of something akin to what’s mercilessly crawling up his spine.

Of being a scared kid in the middle of a too big world, searching for someone to hold his hand and help him cross the road.

“I need--,” Theo presses the wound like dough, as if the skin would forget about the layer of wolfsbane poisoning his blood and sickening his core and stitch back together by force. “I need to do something”

There’s a whining in the chimera’s voice, a desperation that clings in every corner of the incredibly small space they are hiding. Liam doesn’t know if the walls are made out of wood or metal or bricks. He doesn’t even know if there’s walls around him or Theo dragged him down into a hole on the ground. His gaze isn’t as sharp as it should be and the rotten smell that has been pungent in the air now coats his tongue and makes him taste death in an unwanted kiss with destiny.

Liam doesn’t know where he is and he’s not sure he wants to know either, but Theo’s playing a role that has never been in the repertoire and the beta can’t let that happen. Not when he’s supposed to be the hope. Not when he’s supposed to put an end to nightmares, to be everyone’s salvation.

“No,” Liam grunts, the single word weighing more than he can handle over his lips, but not enough to stop him from doing what he’s supposed to do. He shifts under the pressure of trembling hands, pressing his cold ones over the hard floor to use as leverage. “I can do it, let me do it.”

Do what, he doesn’t know. The haze in his mind is too thick and ideas are dim lights turning on and off too far for him to catch anything. Movement is out of question too, his own arms pulling the card of treason and buckling, letting him fall with a groan of frustration.

“No, it has to be me,” Theo breathes out. There’s a striking realization somewhere along that sentence that Liam wants to erase and forbid. Because it can’t be real. It shouldn’t be real. Because that’s not how things should go.

There’s footsteps getting closer and Liam can’t recognize any of them as allies or pack. Theo seems to think the same, if the way his heads crooks to a side and his eyes alight in the golden fire Liam came to know is lit with guilt and misery say something.

Hunters.

How many, Liam doesn’t know. He loses count at each new click of a gun, at each new murmur with lost words of a plan he can’t seem to catch, at each new pressure over his body from claws that doesn’t want to hurt but may.

Hunters.

Tracking them down, doing their work, dividing and conquering like many empires did on their ages of glory.

Hunters.

Many of an army of fear and chaos, and just two of them guarding the front.

Hunters.

The chimera seems far gone in his own mind now and Liam wants to bring him back to his side, to this earth, to the world they share together where Theo doesn’t need to come up with a stupid plan in a stupid hideout spot so they can survive.

“It has to be me,” the realization is gone and instead there’s a certainty that prickles over Liam’s skin like fire. “I can save today, you can save the world... I just-- I have to go.”

One of Liam’s hands, covered in pieces of their escape with leaves and dirt and grief hidden under his nails, grips the chimera’s shirt but it lacks the strength the beta needs to convey what he thinks. It’s like holding water and watch it scur in between his fingers. It doesn’t stay with him.

He can’t stop it.

He’s just a kid in a grown up world, scared and restless and Theo held his hand.

“I wish we had more time.”

“What-- What are you saying?,” the haze he’s in tampers down and the clarity that welcomes his feverish brain is more painful than rotten blood running in his veins and an oozing wound right in between his ribs.

He knows what Theo’s saying, he just wishes that for once the chimera did what it’s expected of him instead of running his own plan, with selfishness on show.

“I’m so proud of you, little wolf,” comes Theo’s strangled reply and Liam hates everything about it. Because this isn’t his Theo, this isn’t the guy who went to hell and back, the one who tease him until his blood boils and anger shimmers between them.

And at the same time, it is.

It’s the broken boy who sobs in the middle of the night because there’s a sister he betrayed and a cold hand clinging to his chest. It’s his anchor, the one who saves him over and over without asking anything in return but for him to breathe and shine.

Liam can feel the air getting thicker and harder to breathe, but he’s not sure if it’s the poison on his body or that there’s an _‘I love you’_ sitting heavily on his heaving chest and in between the crinkles of Theo’s scrunched eyes, closed in a way that’s almost too painful to see, that neither of them dares to speak out loud.

It tastes like the goodbye they don’t want to share, like the one Liam refuses completely to accept.

Their foreheads press together for a short moment and Liam’s hand barely if laces at the back of Theo’s neck before the chimera pulls away. The cold seeps and takes hostage of the space where there was before the warmth and scent of the only other person Liam dared to believe in, a painful realization clicking in place with no shattering sound to accompany it.

An anchor that always saves him.

Liam whispers his name, despair getting palpable and dripping down the beta’s mouth, but the chimera doesn’t stop. The last thing he sees is Theo’s back, getting out of where they are hiding. From then on, it’s like an out of body experience that Liam wishes would turn off at some point, rewrite and change to fill his own selfishness.

Theo’s voice.

A deafening roar.

Gunshots.

Screaming, that’s scared and pained and human.

A broken growl, garbled with liquid that Liam knows is filling lungs in the same way dread is doing with his soul.

Something falls to the ground with a sound that echoes in every cell of Liam’s body.

Then silence.

No twitch.

No sob.

No breathing.

Copper filling his nose, wolfsbane itching his skin.

And silence.

Liam screams and trash and gives up about getting on his feet, instead opting to crawl out of whatever hole he’s into and search for that heartbeat, hunt for that lungful of air, seek for those green eyes.

Silence.

Theo plays the martyr card again.

And Liam hears nothing.

 

*

 

The floor is damp under the freezing rain, but he doesn’t mind.

Liam can hear the squelching sound of his broken converse on the soil, the puddles and the soaked branches over the ground. His socks are drenched, same as his clothes, but he keeps pushing forward.

It’s long since the smell of civilization broke off the forest and there was only left the ones that belong to the nature. The smell of pine cones and bark and flowers he’s not really sure have a name.

He barely if knows where he’s going, his breathing forming clouds that disappear soon after like a dream. Liam wonders if that’s maybe the magic of this side of the woods. Taking precious things, carving a hole in reality to create a dream where everything good exist out of harm's way.

Maybe that’s why nobody else ever visits.

Maybe that’s why, when they got attacked, Theo dragged him as deep into this place as possible.

The little selfishness that just now Liam is starting to understand.

It doesn’t take long before he reaches the place he recognize as the makeshift den of a desperate chimera trying to protect a young werewolf, at the laced roots of two trees and the empty trunk of a third one. Or maybe it does, but he’s already swimming in between memories so time gets harder to track.

Liam holds his breath and circles it, following a pattern that’s not there but he wishes was because at least he would have a damn clue of what to do for the first time in weeks.

If he lets the rain fool him, it’s like watching the scene as an outsider.

The path that Theo followed, dragging all his tired weight and Liam’s too. The one that the hunters chased, because Liam was dripping his guts out and Theo’s instinct kicked into protect the only precious thing he had instead of being the ever tactic chimera he was.

He can see some trees wounded by bullets, he can hear the fathom echo of screams and cries and Theo’s roar claiming to get away from this place, trying to inflict a fear that was clawing his own heart.

Someone that was scared out of his mind but held his hand and helped him cross the road, without minding staying behind.

The faded voice of a boy that wanted to be good, for once.

“You made me proud too,” Liam’s voice is hoarse and hard to push past the loop in his mind that still tries to convince him that this isn’t real, that this never happened, that Theo is just out in his truck, even if it has been parked in front of his house for more than three weeks. 

If he lets his senses lull down into static, a mimic of the human he isn’t anymore, it’s almost as if Theo was there too.

As Liam wishes he would.

There's a goodbye with a weight that burns at the corners of his eyes and claws his insides open in a wild attempt to get out. To touch the air, to be left free. But Liam clings onto it because the moment those words touch his lips, he'll be forced to face an empty reality.

He's not ready to say goodbye.

Not yet.

Not ever.

But he can't hold it any longer, nested in between his lungs and cracking open his heart over and over each times he swallows the words.

He can't keep playing pretend.

"I love you too," he breathes out, like a plea to whoever wants to hold it dear. 

Soon his tears, burning down a trail in his face again, join the rain that run down his hair to the bridge of his nose. Hiccups take over his body, shoulders sagging in a hurted relief, and Liam falls on his knees, disrupting the sanctuary of their last memory together with his soul breaking apart right then and there.

The weight in his chest leasening, shifting, embracing that there's no boy there to find anymore.

Just the dying echo of their memories scattered around.

And his final goodbye.

 

**Author's Note:**

>  **Goodbye to a world** by Porter Robinson  
>  https://youtu.be/W2TE0DjdNqI


End file.
